Palestinian Voters Gave Eisenkot a Chance to Govern—He Should Take It
Foreign Policy · Mairav Zonszein ·
Calling the Israeli election a deadlock is a misnomer.
Calling the Israeli election a deadlock is a misnomer.
Much of the analysis since Israel’s election on Oct. 27 has described the result as a deadlock—a stalemate between the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot. According to this framing, neither side managed to clinch a majority in the 120-member parliament, with Netanyahu and his satellite parties mustering 53 seats and Eisenkot and his bloc capturing 48. As a result, Israel now finds itself at a political impasse.
But this conclusion is based on faulty arithmetic. It fails to take into account the single most striking aspect of the election: the fact that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up roughly 20 percent of the population, voted in unprecedented numbers, helping two Palestinian-led parties capture a record 19 parliamentary seats. Their votes were an explicit repudiation of Netanyahu and his policies, which means that their representatives in parliament should be counted as part of the opposition bloc—bringing the tally to 67 seats. By any objective accounting, this is not a deadlock; it’s a win for the opposition, or at least, it should be framed as such.
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